CENTENNIAL, CO - JANUARY 9: Crews work on the new Salt Storage Dome at the new Public Works facility in Centennial, Colorado on January 9, 2014. Centennial moved into their new Public Works facility in December.

CENTENNIAL, CO - JANUARY 9: Traffic Engineer Duane Cleare monitors several screens in the Traffic Operation Center at the new Public Works facility in Centennial, Colorado on January 9, 2014. Centennial moved into their new Public Works facility in December.

Centennial and CH2M Hill recently opened a new public works building meant to create efficiencies, provide better service to residents and save money in the long run.

Centennial bought the 9.2-acre former lumber yard at 7272 S, Eagle St., in September 2012 for $2.75 million, about one-quarter of its original market value. Before this CH2M Hill, Centennial’s public works contractor, was spread out on 5 acres, split between the offices and maintenance yards.

“A facility of this size allows the city to do a lot more and have a lot more storage space for things that weren’t considered initially when we did the public works services contract,” said David Mortensen, regional director of operations for CH2M Hill.

The city spent $2.791 million to renovate the new space, which, along with the purchase price, was paid for through the general fund, meaning the city didn’t acquire any debt on the transaction, and the total amount it spent on purchasing and renovations was less than the original price of the property.

Among what’s new is space for Centennial’s animal control contractor, the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, to house animals.

“They would make the trip to the civic center and then make a 45-minute trip to a kennel in Aurora to pick up their animal,” said Wayne Reed, Centennial Deputy Manager. “We’re making it very convenient for our customers by having this facility.”

The new 14,500-square-foot office building also contains a 1,500-square-foot community room and smaller meeting rooms, not just for city council, but for neighborhood groups, homeowners associations and nonprofits.

Mayor Cathy Noon said the new meeting space is desperately needed on the east side of the city and said it’s also important because of the audio-visual technology component there.

The office space also includes a brand new traffic operations center, which allows the public works people to monitor signals in real time and make adjustments, something they couldn’t do before with a dial-up setup.

“We’ll be able to address the situation a lot faster than the dial-up situation, which all it does is pop up a small box and says there’s some kind of a problem,” said Duane Cleere, principal traffic engineer, “but here we can see if it’s a flash or detection issue or when we go to cameras we’ll be able to see there’s an accident.”

The new property also includes a 12,500-square-foot maintenance facility that ate up most of the costs to renovate as it was mostly made for lumber and had to be outfitted with heating and air conditioning, grease traps, floor drains and new lighting. The facility can house up to four snowplows or trucks at one time.

The property also has 15,000 square feet of covered bays for snowplows, so they don’t have to uncover the plows before they can get on the streets. They also have several storage tanks to hold fuel, snow-removal chemicals and they can hold up to 5,000 tons of salt for snowplows, which can potentially allow the city to save money.

“We could order most of the salt for the entire season in the summer when the city gets a discount, and there’s not peak demand for the material and we’re not ordering it when we’re in the worst of the storm and the supply might not get to us when we need it,” Reed said.

The property also can serve as an emergency operations center in the event of a disaster as it has backup power.

Aside from CH2M Hill, their subcontractor Terracare also has occupancy in the offices, totaling about 65 people. Ultimately those two companies pay Centennial to lease the facility, around $460,000, providing a return on investment.

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